One Blade of grass
by Myew
Summary: Hotohori is restless, and runs into Miaka in the garden late at night. But...what does she feel for him, anyway? Light and sweet and kinda sad.^_^!


Um.. this is just a little fic about Hotohori and Miaka, who I always wanted to get together. It's short and bittersweet - my first FY fic, so I hope you like it! Oh yeah - you know I don't own any of the charcters or ideas in Fushigi Yuugi, right? Ok, then - let's go! **********************************************************

One Drop of Water, One Blade of Grass

Hotohori stepped out onto the pavillion, silken robes settling gently around his pampered skin like a nervous caress. A full moon hung in the sky, buoyed by a sea of indigo and sparkling stars, and the garden beneath was robed in blue and silver light. Here and there, branches bowed to the light breeze which whistled faintly past. The cherry blossoms, cheery and light during the day, were purple in the moonlight as though they grew at the bottom of a languid sea. He closed his eyes and breathed in, savouring the stillness of this lonely moment.

Removing his slippers, Hotohori followed the steps down into the garden and felt the stones and earth beneath his feet. Here, at least, someone else was in control, and he was asked and could give nothing. The breeze did not ask for permission to blow; the moon did not shy from him and ask permission to light the ground before him. All through the day he was asked, asked innumerable question by those over whom he held the power of life and death. Here, in the quiet of a restless night in his kingdom, it was his pulse at the mercy of another. He strayed from the gravel path and lay on the grass, stretching out and closing his eyes in a rare moment of relaxation. 

"Hotohori?" 

Startled, he sat up and reached for his sword, finding at his side only a thin piece of silk and his hip beneath. He recognised the voice, however; and, in a moment, the figure in the darkness took form.

"Miaka!"

She smiled, folding her pyjama beneath her and sitting down next to Hotohori on the grass. "I was hungry and went around looking for some grub, but saw someone sneaking around in the garden." She paused for a moment, then added, "I'm glad it's you."

Hotohori leaned back again, folding his arms beneath his head. He did not want to interpret the small compliment. "It is unsafe for you to be outside. Suppose I had been a Seiryuu seishi?"

Miaka grinned, rolling up her sleeves. "I could'a taken ya," she said, balling her hands into tiny tight fists and boxing the night air.

Hotohori smiled at the silly display. It was not true, he thought suddenly... he really did not control everything within the walls of his kingdom. He kept his gaze on Miaka, who craned her next upwards and tilted her face towards the sky.

"It's really pretty here," she sighed, "I don't see any stars at home. I even bought a telescope, after meeting you guys, so that I could see the constellations. But there's only the glare from the city..." She turned to him, smiling widely. "Oh hey! There's the Hotohori constellation!"

Hotohori lifted his brows, looking from side to side. "What?"

Miaka smiled and leaned down, closer over Hotohori. "See? There's one star here," she pointed at his outstretched left wrist, which rested close to Miaka's side, "and one here..." She swung her arm, like a clock going backwards, over his body: one at this wrist, one at this ankle, one for the other ankle, one star for the opposite wrist.....

"...and one here." She pointed to Hotohori's forehead, directly between his brows. Her smiling face was only inches from his, and Hotohori could not help but be unnaturally aware of her body. The heat of her breath. The sheets, flimsy and light, which separated them from each other...

Miaka continued, "Five points, like a starfish. One big Hotohori star." Although her face was in shadow, Hotohori could see her bright eyes in the darkness, narrowed and as aware of his presence as he was of hers. Suddenly, Miaka too realised how close they were to one another. Her hair cascaded down and curled gently on Hotohori's face, framing the eyes which watched her so intensely. How dim the moolight seemed in the heady dampness of the garden. She stopped smiling entirely. "Hotohori...."

Instantly, before she could react, Hotohori reached out and clasped the back of Miaka's neck, bringing her mouth down to meet his. For a long moment they remained still - Hotohori could feel Miaka trembling slightly, like a leaf stirred by the gentle midnight breeze. 

At length, Miaka pulled herself from him. "No... don't do that." She sat up, turning her face away into the shadow. "Please....Hotohori. Don't."

Hotohori sat up as well, and stared blankly at the patch of moonlight on the ground before him. Filtered through the branches, it shifted with every gust of wind, like the reflection of the moon on the surface of a lake. He turned to Miaka, who hugged her knees tightly to her chest and kept her back to him. He wanted to reach out, to run his fingertips over the silk robe stretched across her small back and envelope her in his arms. Yet again...this was one of the few things that were beyond his power and right to do. 

"I'm sorry, Miaka." Hotohori sighed, looking up and fixing his eyes on the moon. "I understand that I can never make you love me. I will never accept it, but I am resigned to that fate, now. But," he turned to her, edging closer on the grass, "can you answer a question I have? Just one question." Miaka, not turning around, nodded her assent. Hotohori looked down again, closing his eyes. "Why not me?"

Hotohori, although not touching her, could feel Miaka shiver at the question. The words were like a foil, a bright sheet of metal in the sun; they focused all of Hotohori's love, his pain, and his ruined dreams onto her. Miaka, though her eyes were tightly shut, winced in the glare. 

"I began to love him before I met you. From the moment I opened my eyes in this place, it was Tamahome that I...."

"Do you think," Hotohori asked, edging still closer to Miaka and cuttin her off, "that, if you had opened you eyes upon me, then it might have been different?" He was so close that he could feel the heat created by the proximity of their bodies, and could hear the pain he was causing her. But he needed to know.

Miaka remained perfectly still, her face away from Hotohori and her forhead resting lightly on her arms. "I asked my mom once about love, and how she fell in love with my father. She told me 'love is like a river, Miaka: one glance, like one drop of water, can make it begin, and it starts as a trickle on the side of a mountain. Encourage the trickle just a bit, and it becomes a river that will cut through earth and stone to reach its destination.' I didn't get it at the time, but," she laughed joyless at herself, "I guess that first look was like drop of water on the side of a mountain."

Hotohori leaned over her, placing his mouth close to her ear. "A river begins as a stream, Miaka. And a stream," her ran his hand through her hair, tucking it loosely behind her ear, "can be swayed buy a single blade of grass."

Miaka turned her face to meet Hotohori's, and he drew back: her eyes, black in the darnkess, were full of tears. "Why?" she asked, her face accusing and close to his, "Don't you know how hard this is - why do you want to do this to me?" 

Hotohori placed his hand lightly against Miaka's cheek, brushing away a tear with his thumb. Miaka closed her eyes, leaning into the light pressure of his warm hand. "Miaka..."

"Miaka? MIAKAAAA!!"

They both turned, hearing the name which resonated against the walls and shattered the story hanging in the silence between them. Both recognised the voice that niether would name; Miaka, quickly and guiltily, stood up.

"I hafta go," She said, smiling dimly and wiping her face with the palms of her hand. She avoided looking at Hotohori; instead, she busied herself with the grass clinging to her pyjamas, and looked at the ground. 

Hotohori, stood as well, arms hanging by his sides and eyes looking down at Miaka. She would not catch his gaze. He smiled; from this angle it seemed as though she were robed in only his shadow, as she wordlessly turned to leave. Hotohori watched her for only a moment, as she slipped between the shadows and disappeared. 

**********************************

It was nearly morning when Hotohori was awakened in the garden by one of his attendants. He could not have dozed long; he remembered watching the sun slowly gilding the horizon, and had spent many hours in troubled contemplation by the edge of the koi pond. He must have nodded off, however, and struggled to listen to the news brought to him. Responsabilities chased the tail of the sun, it seemed, and haunted him as soon as the daylight broke. He shivered, chilled by the dew under his bare feet.

"...on our borders again last night, which requires your immediate attention."

Hotohori blinked, only having caught the last half of the sentence. "I beg your pardon - repeat that." 

The young man looked nervous - he was not sure if he had been understood, or had comitted a grave error which required a second exposition. From the Emperor's expression he decided it was the latter, and began nervously, "I'm sorry, Hotohori-sama - I would have come with the information last night, but I was told to await on a account of..." 

Hotohori fixed on him, impatient. "Account of...?"

The young man, whom Hotohori was not sure he had even seen before and had the nervous mein of a eunuch, looked terrified. "Well...on, on account of there being a girl in your room - it being so rare, and all..."

Hotohori stood up instantly and began to head towards his room. He had no spare thoughts for displeasure with the young attendant, and called as he walked away, "Go prepare the information and we will see to these matters presently. " He did not see the man's confused expression as he left him: he was aware of only the distance being closed by the movement of his feet on the gravel. His mind was racing. Had Miaka come to see him? Had she waited for him until morning - what had she wanted to say? Although his breeding would not permit it of his body, Hotohori's mind ran. He flew into his room, sweeping it with his eyes in search of a familiar, beloved face.

There was none. 

Hotohori sat down on his bed, weary with exhaustion and the pain in his heart. She had come and gone - and whatever message she had wanted to give him, whatever feeling she had come to express would surely drown in the light of another day. He sighed, staring at the naked precision of the ceiling beams. He knew he would have to dress, to go and deal with the threats to his borders and his power; but, instead, he threw his head back against his pillow for one stolen moment to think about Miaka. He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, away from the increasing glare of the sun. he gave himself one moment, to gather the strength he needed to face another day, and prepared himself to get up. He opened his eyes.

There.

His eyes had to refocus, and Hotohori reached out to confirm what his other senses detected. There, on his pillow, was the message Miaka had left. Hotohori grasped it, and held it in his palm.

A single blade of grass. 


End file.
